If I were a bad designer, I’d start with redesigning the everyday stuff. Not the obvious failures, but the silent ones. The things we all accept as “just how it is”—until you realize someone chose to make it that way.
If I were a bad designer, I’d start with redesigning the everyday stuff. Not the obvious failures, but the silent ones. The things we all accept as “just how it is”—until you realize someone chose to make it that way.
And then it got manufactured.
And now? You have to wrestle your legs around a toilet just to exit a public bathroom stall.
If I were a bad designer, I’d design everything like this:
Raise your hand if you’ve ever yanked a door that needed to be pushed (or vice versa) while someone watched. Congratulations. You’ve been shamed by bad UX.
A door should tell you what to do—without a label. That’s the point of affordance, when something is designed in a way that signals its function. A flat plate says push. A handle says pull.
So why do we still see doors that look like they want to be pulled—but actually need to be pushed? Because someone prioritized “aesthetic consistency” or “cheap handle” over clarity. Because no one asked, How will this make people feel?
Good design doesn’t confuse you. Bad design forces you to question your own intelligence.
You know the ones. Wide, blocky, and impossible to pour without a spill. The Costco milk jug is a case study in designing for logistics, not users.
They were engineered to be stackable and space-efficient. Great for warehouse storage. Horrible for human hands.
Every time you pour one, it dribbles. The flow control is nonexistent. It was designed around shelf life, shipping cost, and stacking height—but not the actual act of pouring milk.
If I were a bad designer I would sacrifice usability for internal convenience and cost. I would expect my consumer to just simply deal with it.
We love Trader Joe’s.
How about their parking lots, though? Narrow aisles. Confusing entrances. A cruel game of bumper car strategy every time you try to exit. It’s as if every location was chosen for being just slightly too small. If I were a bad designer, I would choose the smallest lot size.
A bad parking experience can sour an entire visit. It adds friction. It creates tension. And most importantly—it’s predictable. Which makes it preventable.
I would intentionally ignore that UX starts long before someone interacts with your product (store experience). And design all parking lots crowded, small spots and minimal exits.
You know the one. The stall door swings inward, and unless you’re a contortionist or under 5’4″, you’re forced to do a full-body shimmy by the toilet just to escape. What the hell even is that experience.
No one thought about the user. No one prototyped the entry and exit. No one tested the experience of someone with a purse, or a disability, or even basic spatial awareness.
Bad design is often the result of unchecked assumptions:
Meeting code isn’t the same as creating comfort. If your audience is physically struggling to interact with your product, you’re not just failing design—you’re failing empathy.
They were signed off. Approved. Built. Shipped. They exist in the wild, despite being objectively terrible experiences.
And that’s the point. Design isn’t just about how something looks—it’s about how it works. If it makes people feel stupid, stressed, or sore? You’ve failed.
It’s clarity, usability and care.
Care enough to test it. Care enough to fix it. Care enough to think, “How will someone feel when they interact with this?”
Every time a user touches your brand—your site, your product, your parking lot—it’s a chance to make them feel seen. Or forgotten.
And if your design makes them feel like they’re holding a Costco milk jug? They won’t just remember it. They’ll avoid it.
Your design is either solving problems or creating new ones. You get to choose which.
